Baker Tilly Isle of Man Cronkbourne and Hannan Law Crosby meet this Sunday in the Tinker Cup semi-final.

The game takes place at Cronkbourne’s Tromode ground and the match starts at midday.

Both sides will be confident that they will win and head towards the final to take on Shimmin Wilson Peel and St John’s on August 25.

Crosby were given a timely boost when they beat Cronkbourne last weekend in the league.

The Marown side bowled well as a team and nearly all of the bowlers took wickets.

Adam McAuley of Cronkbourne scored a fine 87 for his team but Crosby’s bowlers were able to restrict Cronkbourne to 165.

Crosby’s batsmen backed up their bowlers with the top three scoring runs.

Jamie Brown hit 62 and Danny Kniveton made a reasonable score for the second game running.

Perhaps he is coming into a bit of form in time for the semi-final?

Cronkbourne can bat well down the order. Both Matthew Ansell and Adam McAuley have made big scores this season, with Harry McAleer and Jack Gerrard providing back up.

Last week, the Cronkbourne bowlers were unable to get into the Crosby batsmen and this may be their weakest feature once again.

The skipper, Nathan Knights, will hope to get a big total in the first 10 overs, which should put more pressure on the opposition when the time comes for the second round of batting.

Both Cronkbourne and Crosby have another game on Saturday before the semi-final.

Cronkbourne welcome Newfield Castletown to their Tromode home in Division One.

Cronkbourne will hope to get the same team on to the field for both games, but they may be vulnerable to a Town batting line up that has picked up form recently.

Jaco Jansen has scored a century this season. Sam Callister has had a couple of decent knocks recently, including his 87 last week and Dan Laughlin can be dangerous if allowed to get a start.

I think Castletown could be favourites for this one, especially with Cronkbourne’s semi-final taking place the next day.

Also in Division One, Crosby make the trip to Ramsey on Saturday.

Ramsey have had a fillip recently with a victory over Cronkbourne and will be happy to face the Marown side.

However, they did take a bit of a thumping from Crosby the last time they met, losing by nearly 200 runs.

If they can get a decent team out to play, and their batsmen bat with patience as well as exuberance, they should get some runs on the board.

Ramsey’s bowlers can bowl well at times, but they can get frustrated quickly.

Braden Birchall can move the ball away from the batsmen in a great fashion. He recently took a deserved five wickets against Valkyres in a twenty20 game.

Saturday’s match in the Manx Premier League, the upper tier of the weekend leagues, sees Ramsey Crookall Finch Hill play Shimmin Wilson Peel and St John’s (PSJ) at their Ballafletcher ground.

Finch Hill’s match was washed out last Sunday and PSJ’s game on Saturday was curtailed because of the rain.

Phil Littlejohns and Alex Williamson of PSJ scored some runs, demonstrating that the team can bat past Ollie Webster.

Finch Hill also have batsmen of note including Sam Barnett, Josh Sinclair and Christian Webster. PSJ may have players missing because of holidays, but this game could be a case of whichever team gets the wicket of Ollie Webster or George Burrows early will be the winner.

Finally, Valkyres will be providing the teas in their match with the Callin Wild Development XI on Sunday at Mullin-e-Cloie.

Valkyres may consider themselves unlucky that the game versus PSJ was brought to a halt as they were on top and looked the likely winners, a result that would have left them clear at the top of the league.

The addition of Michael Lowe and Steven King in recent games has strengthened the line up and they will be looking forwarding to the game.

However, the Development XI beat Valkyres decisively in their last meeting. Matthew Ansell (138) and George Burrows (83) put the bowling to the sword and Valkyres’ weakness, fielding, was exposed again.

The honours are even between the teams over the season as Valkyres won their cup game early in the campaign so the result cannot be clearly foretold.

ANDY COULSON